Purpose: Career choice is one of the most important decision making in whole life. Lots of money, time should be spent in order to gain necessary competency to do the job. Choosing dental job should be accomplished with more precise considerations, because prior studies pointed that there is a little chance of changing job for dentists. This study was carried out to assess first year dental students' motivation to enter dental profession. In addition, motivation factors of male and female student were compared.

Methods & Materials: The study population comprised 92 first – year dental students of Tehran and Shahid Beheshti University. A questionnaire which included information on students demography and motive rankings was administered. Seven dimensions were covered in the questionnaire including income, social status, independency, service to people, manual working with hands, parents advice and relation with people. The results were analysed using Mann – Whitney U test.

Results: The data showed that over 60 percent of first – year dental students were females. Most important motives for choosing dentistry were social status and service to people whereas manual working was a less important motive. Statistically significant differences were revealed in two areas of career choice motivation between male and female dental students. Male students were more likely to be motivated by income. By contrast female students were more likely to be influenced by their parents' advice.

Conclusion: Having a good status in the society, students are choosing dentistry to gain social status, service to people is yet a strong motive. Female dental students are in the majority. Male students rate income more highly than the females. Male students could be encourages by this point to enter dental profession.